See figure 1

One of the first lessons you learn in grad school is that your text book(s) is/are as valuable as a paperweight. At least in the hard sciences, the field tends to move fast enough that, by the time a text book is published, the information within is either incomplete or inaccurate. Consequently, you'll spend more time reading the relevant journals for your field than any text book, and new information is introduced through review articles.

The long preface is only to introduce Shamus's post on the problems he encounters in the tech world, writing support documents and other technical documentation. Though many of his examples are angled towards programming or coding languages, the general principles are by no means unique to his field.

I find often that the scientific literature suffers from the problems Shamus describes: No explanation of technical terms, assuming a higher level of knowledge on the part of readers than is warranted, assuming a high level of knowledge in related (or not) fields, over-complicated examples, building too steep a learning curve, and so on. One problem that is more unique to this field is the use of self-serving examples. That is, all of the "relevant" work referenced by the author of a review is to his (or their) own work in the field. While this might be appropriate if you're one of a handful of people who actually study the topic at hand, it usually gives only a narrow impression of the work being done in the field, and thus not appropriate for a "review."

One idea that Shamus introduced that I would love to see implemented more fully in the scientific journals is better use of the electronic medium. Everything that is published on paper also is published online as a PDF. Journals like Science usually affix a "title" page to it, with links to the supplemental material on the web (additional figures, movies, and whatever else the authors considered important enough to include but not critical enough to warrant space in the paper). However, taking this further would be an incredible step in bringing science into the age of the internet.

In a review article, what if certain terms or phrases were hyperlinks to either a "dictionary" of terms or to futher review articles on the specific topic? What if the citations at the end of the paper were themselves hyperlinks which would take you to the reference? What if each of the authors' names were hyperlinks to other articles they have published? When a technique is not fully explained by said to be done "as previously described," either link to where it was described or to a database which explains the principles such techniques.

While I realize this might seem like a lot of work to put into a simple PDF journal article, this would be insanely useful to all sorts of people. And these are just the hasty suggestions of a graduate student . . . I'd love to see what sorts of suggestions actual experts might come up with.

I guess Firefox is for whites

That's the only conclusion I can reach, and it sounds like someone reached the same conclusion.

Some things are just beyond parody. Seriously, do I even need to tell you why this is stupid?

Abandon all hope ye who enter here

My dating pool has dried up ever since I moved out to Baltimore, so just for kicks and grins I signed up for one of those dating sites (that isn't eHarmony, anyhow). Just the free version, mind you. I've no intention of paying good money to get rejected by women, as I'm already getting enough of that for free.

In any event, I can understand why people are often as skeptical as they are about online dating websites. I imagine that some are better than others, but there seems to be common issues resonating on all of these sites, and it's more of a problem with the people than the sites themselves. Although let's face it, most of these sites do have the problem of being like a party where you see a bunch of people standing around and every time you try to talk to someone the host walks up and demands $5 before he'll let you chit-chat.

In any case, let's talk about the things that make these women's profiles so egregious, as I don't have anything else interesting to blog about lately:

Photos
This is clearly the biggest issue for your profile, as it's the first thing a guy is going to notice about you, yet also seems to be the one thing that people spend no time or effort on. Common issues include:

• The eye gouger- Seriously, you couldn't find a better looking picture than that? You have one eye half shut and your tongue is hanging out.
• The lonely shot - You wanted to get a quick headshot in, so you held your digital camera at the arm's length and took a photo. Since you're paying $20/month for this, you couldn't spend a little time to change out of your pajamas and get a friend to snap the photo for you?
• The ex - Why in God's name would you post a picture of your ex-boyfriend licking your face to a dating website?
• The woman of mystery - Okay, so you like the picture of you and all your friends at the beach. Since we can't tell which of the 13 women in the picture is you, we're just going to assume you're the one who looks like she got a once-over from Hannibal Lecter and move on.
• The time warp - We can all tell when you're using a picture older than the children you talk about in your profile. You might want to give us some credit and post something that was taken since the advent of digital cameras.

The Profile
You get a bunch of multiple choice radio boxes and a 500 word essay to sell yourself to me. Why is it that some people can't seem to get this one right?

First, there's weight. Look, if you're not going to post a picture of yourself, it's just polite to fill this portion out. Unfortunately, the websites seem to be in the habit of letting people live in Imagination Land (TM), because most have four categories: Slim, Athletic, Average, and "A few extra pounds." From what I've seen, people who pick that last one are making quite the understatement.

Next come your activities. I don't know a lot of people who will say that they hate being outdoors, and I think all of us can find enjoyment if we're at a picnic and get roped into a game of volleyball or horseshoes. But don't tell me that you regularly enjoy kayaking, hiking, swimming, tennis, basketball, badminton, water polo, bowling, competitive dance, base jumping, and speed skating. You can't possibly partake in all of those often enough to call any of them a hobby, and you certainly don't look athletic enough for that to be believable anyhow.

The biggest hurdle is the free-form profile. Spelling is the most obvious issue; again, you're spending a lot of money on this to try to find a mate. Don't you think you could have spent 10 seconds running this thing through spell-check? The biggest thing I notice is the abundance of nonsense phrases. These can include, but are not limited to:

• "Looking for someone who doesn't play games" - Like what, checkers? What does that even mean?
• "I love to laugh/have a good time" - Phew. For a second, I thought you might have been a kill joy.
• "Friends are very important to me" - Me, I'm just going to hang out in the Batcave all day and be broody and emo. Friends . . . pfft.
• "I'm looking for . . ." - This list could go on for a long time. Basically, it involves any number of qualities that only the socially retarded will be lacking. Then again, this being the internet, perhaps those things can't go without saying. You know, things like "someone who's down to earth," "someone who is a good listener," "someone who will appreciate me," "someone who is confident in himself." They all seem like a good thing to say, but they mean absolutely nothing. Oh, and if you decide to say that you're looking for someone who "shares (my) interests," it would be a good idea to actually say what those are.

So there you have it. Internet dating . . . I'm willing to concede that it might improve once you're willing to spend money on it. Until I have that kind of disposable income, however, I'm going to stick with my usual strategy: Making awkward chit-chat with ladies on the train from work, then following them in the parking lot, get a face full of pepper spray, and then run off screaming something about coffee and phone numbers.

Perhaps it sounds painful, but how could it be worse than online dating?

Diminishing Returns

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not quite dead. December being what it is, what with all the holidays and people returning to town and new video games and what not, you tend to become distracted. Or rather, I tend to become distracted.

In any event, I spent New Year's Even in Chicago with some old friends from ISU, and it was quite a lot of fun. What didn't hurt was that our gracious host had purchased this some months ago:

Yes, that is a BIG television. Seventy-three inches, in fact.

On the one hand, I'm quite jealous. Who wouldn't love having that behemoth taking over their living room, the envy of cinephiles everywhere?

On the other hand, there comes a point at which it's not very helpful to have a larger television. We spent a good portion of my time there playing Halo 3 on this monstrosity. Even with the HD hook-up for the Ecks Bawks, there was still pixelation in a lot of the graphics. Don't even get me started on what the Wii graphics looked like . . . it wasn't as good looking as it was on smaller televisions. Our host still has his old N64, and he's said that it's all but unplayable on that television. I can only imagine.

He doesn't own an HD/Blu-ray DVD player, so normal DVDs suffer from pixelated quality as well. Even HD television, the ideal medium for such a TV, starts showing problems around the edges at such a size.

This makes me curious what the best TV size is. At what point does a larger screen start impinging on visual quality?

Surviving the Inevitable

Some people worry endlessly about what they'll do when the zombie uprising comes.

Yeah, that's all well and good, but perhaps a bit unrealistic.

Surviving the robot uprising, on the other hand, will probably be on your to-do list sometime in the next century. That's why you should memorize this handy guide on how to flee from a robot or snoop out one disguised as a human. Although I guess if you watch Battlestar Galactica you already know all of this.

I'm a Rocket Man!

Well, no, that's not true. But NASA's tour of the Kennedy Space Center makes me think about it all the same.

I thought I'd put some pictures on here for you to see. Looking through what we took, some of them are cool, and some . . . well, I don't think anybody out in the intertubes really cares about some of these shots. Click on the photos to see the full-sized image.


This isn't technically where the tour started, but it's a good enough pictures to begin with. This is the bottom of a Saturn V rocket, the type of rocket used through the Gemini and Apollo programs, up until the space shuttle was developed. It's hard to tell from the picture, but those exhaust ports there have a diameter of about 7 feet (IIRC). You probably don't want to be anywhere near one when it's firing.


This structure, as seen from the tour bus (the other views aren't nearly as good) is the Vehicular Assembly Building. The VAB is supposedly one of the largest buildings by volume in the world, the largest until a few years ago. I don't know what surpassed it. However, it can supposedly hold 3.75 Empire State Buildings, so it's pretty big. And that flag on the building's side? When it was first painted a few decades ago, it took 60,000 gallons of paint to complete it.

In this building, the shuttle is assembled with the secondary rockets. Neat.


In case you don't know what the secondary rockets look like, there they are. That's actually the display at the front of Kennedy. I guess you can't just put those things out for trash pickup.


Here's one of the launch platforms. It's not a great view, but this was as close as we were gonna get.


This is one of the things we were lucky to see that day. Lumbering away from the launch pad, you see the shuttle platform/crawler.

This monster of modern engineering essentially consists of four trucks carrying a massive array which will hold the shuttle and ferry it to the launch platform. Weighing anywhere from 6 to 9 million pounds (I heard both numbers), it is truly a sight to behold. Moving at speeds up to 1 mph, it can position itself to +/- 1 inch, which is necessary in lining the shuttle up properly at the launch pad.


You really don't get an idea of how massive this thing is until you see it closer up. Those spots down there by the treads are people. They look like toys next to the thing. Those treads? Each weighs one ton. Truly enormous.


The next set of photos comes from the portion of Kennedy devoted to the International Space Station. There's an observation deck where you can watch the work on portions of the station that will be going into space. No flash photography, of course, but you can still take normal photos. Not that there's anything spectacular to see here, but it's neat all the same.


There are some things I wanted to have pictures of, but the opportunities were lost. Atlantis was to land on the day we were there, but it was too overcast for the shuttle to land and was delayed by a day. I'm not sure there would have been much to see, as you can only be so close to the landing site and it's not nearly as dramatic as a launch, but it still would have been cool. Ah well. The trip was still worth it. I highly recommend you take the tour if you're ever in central Florida.

Does Jesus use a Mac?

Maybe you're a computer-savvy nerd. I'm not very knowledgeable with such things, I just get by.

Still, if you're into that sort of thing, here's two very interesting blog posts comparing the development of OS standardization to the development of Christian denominations. It's kinda funny, in a really nerdy sort of way.

News Dump

Since I've been absent lately, I thought I might just toss out links to things I've found interesting lately.

Food Chemistry Blog
Harold McGee, a contributor to the NYT, has a blog about food science and chemistry. Check it out, it's neat-o.

Liquid Condom
This is interesting on two fronts. It's a liquid condom that a woman would insert, and at the internal pH it becomes a gel, more akin to a traditional condom's consistency. When exposed to semen, the pH change causes it to become liquid again, and to release an anti-HIV drug.

I haven't come up with any jokes about this yet, but the story just begs for them.

Sea creatures vs. CO₂
Hm . . . a tiny sea creature eats tinier sea creatures that have absorbed dissolved CO2. Then, they excrete solid blocks of carbon rather than CO₂. Apparently, the researchers are thinking this might be a way to minimize mankind's CO₂ output. It seems difficult logistically, and I wonder how useful it would be to start dumping piles of solid carbon into the ocean, but it's an interesting concept. I wonder where they'll take it.

Nintendo recalls Wii straps
Hey, I haven't broken anything. Everyone else must be a moron.

Ban Ki-Moon snubs the French
Heh, silly French people. France insists that french remain the second official language of the UN, and that any Secretary General should be fluent in it. A French-Canadian asks the new guy, in french, what his thoughts are on it. His response? "Sorry, I didn't understand the language, could you translate that?" Hilarious.

Paintball Minigun Fires at 1200psi

Wicked cool.

It doesn't shoot paintballs yet, but that's okay. With that kind of pressure, you couldn't really use it in close quarters. But I can imagine having way too much fun sitting back by the flag with one of those things and just spraying all of the approaches.

Heh.

Steampunk Laptop

Ooooh . . . old and busted hotness. I want one.

Not Creepy

Nope. Not at all. Uh-uh.

Incidentally, if you happen to get a shower-radio from me for Christmas, it's not one of these. Promise.